HART Portal - Medicines - Starting Point

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Online Health Encylopaedia

Drug Names - CMI's & PI's

	Eknow How Australian Commercial Site	Drug Database: Links to the formal Consumer Medicines Information and Full Product Information. CMI is designed for the user, PI is designed for health professionals but is very thorough. It may be easier to click on the letter for the trade name and scroll through.
	APPCo Australian Commercial Site	Australian Prescription Products: Guide NB. has the same information as Health Answers but you need to complete a free registration. Only need to enter the asterisked fields - e-mail response is almost instantaneous. This gives the latest PI's and CMI's
	Health Network Australian Commercial Site	Medicines: This site has general, more readable drug information which is more user friendly than a PI. If you only know the trade name and it isn't common then you might not find it here. If you type a brand name it knows you get directed to a generic site. eg. Searches often fail with Australian better price brands eg. Alphapril which is the generic equivalent to Renitec
	My DR- (Mims) Australian Commercial Site	Find medication information on myDr : Get a choice of CMI or PI Summary. The PI Summary is not designed to be friendly for consumers. The summary information comes from the pocket size monthly Mims publications which are often used by Health Professionals. You can search for a medication by problem eg. Pain
	Family Doctor NZ Commercial Site	Medications: Fairly brief information is provided about drug families. Eg. ACE inhibitors, Beta blockers. Summarised in the following sections: Description, Cautions, Side Effects, Interaction, Patient information. Unfortunately NZ Trade Names may be different
	My.WebMD US Commercial Site	Drugs and Herbs: Has very good information if you know the US name for the drug and also some herbal information. It is not ideal for Australian brand names, you can't do part-word searches and you need to use American spelling.
	Yahoo Health US Commercial Site	Drug Index: Worthwhile information once you have located the drug. Drugs are arranged according to their US generic name. Once you find the drug 'Overview' is presented first, then you need to click on 'Precautions' to see the rest of the information. Yahoo also provides an 'image' of the tablet. This is unlikely to be useful as the Australian product may look different.
	Drugs.com US Commercial Site	Search: Very detailed information if you are patient and know the US or Canadian trade or generic name. Drugs are listed by US generic name. Usually offers a US version of the CMI, Advanced CMI, or the US version of the PI (USPDI)
	Mayo Clinic US Commercial Site	Drug Information: Drug information comes from Micromedex (a well respected source) but is easy to comprehend. The site has US and Canadian Brand Names
	Health A to Z US Commercial Site	Drug Guide: Another US Commercial site offering neatly presented US information. Need to agree not to hold Multim responsible for anything. Sometimes the side-effects list is noticeably shorter than you would find in a full PI. The Drug Dictionary may be helpful but it is US based (eg. Panadol is included but paracetamol is not).

Important Information about Drug Names:
Medicines and Drugs are sometimes known by different names. They are often known by a Trade name this is generally the 'brand' name of the drug - these brand names can vary from country to country eg. Panadol. (Tylenol is a brand that is commonly sold in the USA).

There are frequently several brands which have the same active ingredient eg. Dymadon, Panadol and Tylenol all have the same active ingredient Paracetamol. The name of the active drug is the 'Generic' name.
Unfortunately sometimes even the generic name can vary between countries. (In the USA paracetamol is called acetaminophen)
For many drugs you can use Raymot's Generic-Brand Dictionary:

Sometimes the Yahoo Encyclopaedia can help.

Searching this for paracetamol tells you that paracetamol is acetaminophen. Searches on US sites therefore should be for acetaminophen.

Also drug availability may vary between countries. Some drugs which are available in Australia, may not be available in other countries. eg. Moclobemide is available in Australia but not in the USA.

CMI : Consumer Medicine Information
In the last few years many governments, including the Australian Government have been encouraging pharmaceutical companies to produce and distribute CMI's with dispensed medicines. In the last few years CMI's have been attached to the medication. Current legislation requires that a pharmacist can produce a CMI if requested to do so. This ensures that the most current information is provided.

PI : Product Information
Drug companies are also required to produce full product information for every scheduled medicine. The PI is designed to be read by health professionals and is likely to contain far more jargon than the CMI. However, if you really want to learn about your medication the PI is far more comprehensive.

It is important to realise that both the CMI and the PI are written by the company manufacturing the drug.

While you may expect CMI's and PI's to be biased towards the product the companies tend, for legal reasons, to mention every negative they know about.

(Another option is to find an independent review of the medicine from one of the other sites listed in this section.)

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This page last update on 16-feb-06